Il Porno shop della settima strada / The Pleasure Shop on 7th Avenue

Two desperate thieves, Bob (Ernest Arnold according to the credits and IMDB, though one strongly suspects he is in fact Ernesto Colli) and Ricky, rob a chemist, despite the owners indications that he is protected by the mob, specifically one Archie Moran, and that they are thus making a big mistake.

Sure enough, two of Moran's goons soon arrive seeking their weekly protection, forcing the thieves to flee out the back door. Trying to evade their purusers the two men find themselves in the titular “pleasure shop” and on learning that its manager Lorna (Annamaria Clementi) is the girlfriend of the selfsame Moran decide to kidnap her. They figure she could prove a useful bargaining chip as they hastily improvise an escape plan, entailing getting the hell out of New York and making for the Canadian border with the weekend traffic.


D'Amato borrows the old hall of mirrors shot...

After collecting the mutual acquaintance who suggested the job in the first place, Sammy (Peter Outlaw –the kind of pseudonym that makes you wonder what other credits he may have that aren’t listed on the IMDB, with this being his only one), they break into what should be an empty suburban house suitable for hiding out in, only to find it unexpectedly occupied by three students, the couple Frank (Christian Borromeo) and Sue and the repressed Faye (Brigitte Petronio), who have themselves broken in.

A sex and violence variant on the classic Desperate Hours scenario thus ensues, with Moran and his men closing in all the while thanks to a message surreptitiously dropped by Lorna...




You won't find a greater hive of scum and villainy...

One of the distinguishing features of Joe D'Amato's cinema in the 1970s was his enthusiasm for blending sex and other material, most often horror. It's an approach I'd previously tended to dismiss as simple opportunism, a calculation seemingly based on the premise that if X percent of his audience wanted the former and Y percent the latter then by including both he could appeal to the larger constituency Z, comprising X plus Y. While I still think there is an element of truth to this, along with the possibility that this combination more often than not likely alienated as many from each camp as it brought in, that Z equals the lesser intersection of X and Y, it also failed to place a film like The Porno Shop on Seventh Avenue in context, as the product of the period in which porn cinema had moved from loop with no pretence of presenting anything other than sex to features which strove to integrate their sexual numbers into a narrative framework.


A female voyeur

Likewise, though I still believe that the likes of Erotic Nights of the Living Dead or Porno Holocaust are unsuccessful hybrids in conventional terms, as much “turn off” as “turn on” for even D’Amato’s audience, this film actually works pretty well as a sleazy sex-and violence one-two. The key difference, I think, is that it is lower key, operating in the naturalistic terror arena than the supernatural horror one. Moreover, it also manages to avoid the kind of mythic contrivances that weaken many other Last House on the Left style entries, barring the convenient coincidence of having the two groups happen to choose the same des-res; the obvious point of comparison here, given the presence of Christian Borromeo and Brigitte Petronio, some card playing and casual racism in both films, is Ruggero Deodato’s House on the Edge of the Park.
The film’s discourses around race are, as so often the case in D’Amato’s films (Tough to Kill, the Black Emanuelle series etc.) themselves intriguing. Sammy is black and the butt of much casual racism from his white colleagues, who are identified as Italian or Puerto Rican by the Jewish-coded shopkeeper Cohen; clearly there is a lot going on here, even if much of it is confused and contradictory.

Much the same applies to the film’s treatment of gender. There are numerous awkward shifts in tone where any given situation may shift from no-means-no rape to no-means-yes 70s porno rape or similar dubious male fantasy scenario. Yet given the set-up we might also sometimes be able to contextualise these as somewhat rational attempts by the three women to make the best of a bad situation, as when Sue offers herself to Bob when he appears about to rape Faye.

Unfortunately as far as mounting any kind of critique of masculinity and making quasi-feminist justifications for the film goes, it's also precisely at such moments that D'Amato's inevitably reminds us of his real motives and audience: the music segues from suspense to porn cues as, rather than taking the opportunity to escape or actively turn the tables, the woman also gets down.

Yet one also, as ever, gets a sense of an admittedly paradoxical disarming naïvete behind D'Amato's calculating crassness throughout the film, that he really doesn't take any of this terribly seriously and probably wonders how anyone could ever do so.

It's all entertainment, however dubious, and as such needs to be taken in terms of whether it’s a worthwhile way to spend 90 minutes. Obviously if you're seeking life-changing cinema, D'Amato is not your man. But if what you want is a bit of sex, a bit of violence and a bit of I-can't-believe-I-just-saw-that – one moment of note being when, having just been saved Bob’s attentions Faye then lies back to enjoy the show as they have sex and masturbates herself; though sleazehounds should also be aware be there is nothing here to compare with the likes of Emanuelle in America – he can be always relied upon to deliver the goods. In keeping with this general attitude, there's even a happy ending of sorts for almost all concerned.

Besides being technically tolerably well-made – D’Amato serves as his own cinematographer under his real name Aristide Massaccessi once more, even if more as an economic than an aesthetic decision – and making the most of its limited range of locations, cast and musical selections, the film proves of considerable interest as a document of a demi-monde and type of cinema long past. While few will mourn their passing, for those of us who welcome an alternative to bland Hollywood product and a diversity of cinema, the re-emergence of films like The Porno Shop on Seventh Avenue is to be very much welcomed.

[The film was released with English subtitles by Luminous Film and Video Wurks and can be downloaded in AVI format from Cinemageddon]